This month’s featured winemaker profile is Merrill Grove of Red Road Vineyard & Winery located in Naples, Texas. The East Texas winery has been making award-winning wines for many years and was one of the first wineries that Texas Wine Lover wrote about when we started. We are proud to feature Merrill Grove as this month’s Featured Winemaker Profile!
- What did you do before becoming a winemaker?
From when I can remember, it has always been about my art. All my endeavors, from the art gallery to the vineyard, were created in parallel with my art, creating an income resource so as to keep my creative thrust pure. And in writing this paragraph, realizing that I have revolved into producing what people like. Wow!
- What is the toughest challenge about being a winemaker in Texas?
Survival!! With the modest, but unique facility 20 years ago, it could be done with a solid wine portfolio. Today, competing against the mega destination wineries, you have to produce exceptional wines and create your own niche brand that accentuates you from the rest.
- Is winemaking an art or a science or both?
Of course, both in the fact that science mandates your capacity for the sound wines and the art that makes your individual senses personalize your creation.
- What is your favorite food and wine pairing?
A gorgeous Mediterranean pasta salad, paired with our award-winning Sedoga, a Seyval Blanc blend.
- If you didn’t make wine, what would you do?
If I could be selfish, I would be totally immersed in painting my art. And being one, out at the farm with Deborah (Grove, my wife).
- What first attracted you to winemaking and how long have you been doing it?
Through college and after college I’ve always been a self-generator, not a 9 to 5 person. For me, the decisions made in my life were more or less based on odds and a lot on passion (you have to have passion). I was a total wine enthusiast, but at the same time, I brewed a lot of beer. Looking at the retail end of it, wine has a longer shelf life than beer so that’s where the odds came in and I chose wine. Looking towards the latter half of my life, not thinking I was going to slow down, my hunch was right, this was going to be the best part of my life. Easily the best continuous 80 hours a week I’ve ever had. We’re going on our 22nd harvest. I put in an 11-acre vineyard in 1999, naively thinking I was going to be a grape grower. But if you follow the money, the money is in the winery business, so I went for it and officially opened Red Road Vineyard & Winery in 2007!
- What is the most common question you are asked as a winemaker?
Lucy grape stomp scenario.
- After a long day in the winery or vineyard, what do you do?
On rare occasions, if we get home before sunset, we sit out by the fire pit and enjoy one of our award-winning creations, the vineyard, and the gloaming. Sexiest part of the day.
- What’s the greatest part about being a winemaker?
The rare moment that somebody is a total virgin to wine, and you get to introduce them to a lifelong friend. Letting people know, and giving them confidence, that what they like is the best wine in the world.
- What is your winemaking philosophy, that is, what are you trying to achieve with your wines?
Creating that sound product that people will enjoy. Keeping it small and intimate, all hands-on small batches or lots. To exemplify and be different within most traditional parameters.
- Anything else you would like to add?
I would like to thank my wife and partner Deborah and all those who have a hand at keeping us going forward, and all the people that have judged and enjoyed my wine, thank you. It is an exciting time in the Texas wine industry. After almost 20 years, I still have that twinkle in my eye for this business.